Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko cautioned that Indonesia would not experience a food crisis. He also asked all elements of society to start preparing themselves, namely, by increasing productivity in the agricultural sector and diversifying food. This was conveyed by Moeldoko when opening a discussion with hundreds of stakeholders engaged in the food sector, in the KSP Listening program online, Monday (1/8/2022). Moeldoko said that currently the availability of domestic food is still very good. "In the last 3 years, productivity in the agricultural sector, especially in rice commodities, has experienced a surplus, so that national consumption needs are fulfilled," he said. However, this achievement must not catch Indonesia off guard, especially since the world situation continues to change very quickly. For example, such as climate change and weather and global geopolitical conditions. "Climate change and weather can lead to crop failure conditions. Changes in global geopolitics, can make countries producing food commodities stop their exports, and cause an increase in energy prices, resulting in a conversion from food to energy due to the need for capital," he said.

The Chairman of the Indonesian Farmers Harmony Association (HKTI) assessed that Indonesia still benefits from climatic and weather conditions. The phenomenon of high rainfall that occurs today has a positive impact on the agricultural sector, namely not experiencing crop failure. However, Indonesia is also affected by global geopolitics, such as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and political issues in Belarus. "The Russian-Ukrainian conflict makes us unable to import wheat, even though our needs are 30 percent. The political issue in Belarus, makes us have to import fertilizer from other countries at a higher price. Not to mention the increase in world oil prices, which makes the situation even more difficult. This is a challenge and we must find a solution," said Moeldoko. Facing these conditions, Moeldoko emphasized that the government has worked hard to anticipate the food crisis due to climate change and global geopolitics. The government is diversifying food, optimizing subsidized fertilizers to be on target, including budgetary political policies for the extensibility of agricultural lands. "For food diversification, I have started growing sorghum in NTT. It turns out that in dry conditions, sorghum can thrive. Now, we need to find new food alternatives to replace rice," he said. On that occasion, Moeldoko also heard a lot and accommodated the aspirations of stakeholders related to efforts to increase food productivity..

For example, ease of licensing the development of new seed varieties, the resolution of conflicts over agricultural lands and plantations, as well as the optimization of village unit cooperatives (KUD) to cope with the middleman game. "We hope that the government will preserve the KUD in order to achieve the welfare of farmers. So far, farmers have sold more crops to middlemen even though prices are low," said a farmer from Yogyakarta, Nanang Bona. For information, KSP Listening is a program of the Presidential Staff Office to capture the aspirations of the community related to the implementation of government programs and strategic issues. This is in accordance with the task of the One Map Policy, which is to provide support to President Joko Widodo and Vice President Ma'ruf Amin in carrying out control of national priority programs, political communication, and management of strategic issues.

Source : https://www.beritasatu.com/amp/ekonomi/958927/moeldoko-dorong-peningkatan-produktivitas-pertanian